Being Super Boy

The nightmare plays itself over and over again almost every night.1

It's just like it was six years ago. I am sitting in the waiting room. Alone. I am wishing my dad was still in the picture. He's not.2

The doctor enters. In my dreams sometimes he lookes normal, just like he looked that day, tall, and well kept but with a sad look in his eyes. Sometimes he looks like a demon, green eyes with an evil glint, long razor teeth, sparks flying out of him as he strides through the door. 3

No matter what he looks like I am always scared when I see him. I am scared by the sadness and his slow heavy steps. I am scared because every other time I have seen him in this hospital he has been running around in a hurry trying to save my mom's life. When I see his heavy steps my heart rams itself into my throat and I am choking on it. My body goes limp and just as in real life I feel like I will spin out into nothingness from the grief originating from what I know he is about to say.4

Then I wake up. I never sleep long enough to get to the part where the doctor tells me that my mom died. I always wake up soaked in sweat and sometimes I have wet myself. I never tell my foster parents that I wet myself. I always quietly strip the bed and throw the sheets in my laundry. I keep a spare clean set ready every night. In the mornings I wash the sheets and pretend I'm just washing clothes. After all a fourteen year old boy who still wets the bed, that's just not normal.5

It's been eight years, I should be over my mother's death. But I'm not. My mom was everything to me. I shared everything with her and she was like a super hero to me. After seh died I begged to be placed with my dad. When social services spoke to him about it my dad told them that "there was no way in hell, I'm ever having anything to do with that kid again. I told Lily to get an abortion after the condom broke."6

I wasn't supposed to know he said that, but about three years ago one of the endless string of social workers left my file on the table while she went to the bathroom. That was one of the lovely things I read while she used the facilities. I also read that I was "difficult to place due to my behaviors," and that I was a deeply disturbed boy".7

I am currently in my fifth foster home. Since my mom died I've been raped by one foster father, beaten by one foster mother and one foster father, and treated like a mental case by most all of the foster parents, even the nice ones. 8

My current foster home is okay. I live with another foster boy and my foster parents two teenage daughters. The other foster kid thinks the two daughters are hot and is always flirting with them. I don't feel a thing for either girl. I've never felt attraction to anyone. I don't need anyone. I know better then to get close to someone. They'll just get ripped away from me as soon as I get attached. I will not allow myself to be broken again.9

I do allow myself to break myself however. After the nightmares when I can't fall back asleep, I pull out my tools. Sometimes I use a pocket knife, sometimes I burn. I never hurt myself in obvious ways, not like those stupid emo kids who think its cool to mutilate. I carve up the inside of my leg or the bottoms of my feet instead. 10

Tonight I refuse to even go to sleep. It's been a bad day. My foster parents are talking about me being to strange for them to deal with. They didn't say it to my face, but I overheard them on the phone with the social worker. They are worried about my isolation, the way I mumble mantras to myself, they think I need to be in a "psychiatric facility" they think I need "long term treatment" and from the sound of things the social worker agrees and they're going to try to take me tomorrow.11

Tonight I am in the bathroom I share with my foster brother. Both the doors are locked and I am prepared to take my self mutilation one step farther. I am sick of everyone telling me I'm messed up. If mom was here she would reassure me that I'm fine. She would pull me close and sing me a lullaby. She would fix things. But she's dead. And I'm not really fine.12

For the first time in my life I cut in a visible place. I cut my arm, because it won't matter anymore. No one is going to find it until its too late. This is my last resort. I always told myself I would never do this but things change.13

The cuts go deeper. They are bleeding profusely. I am going to join my mother. Things will be better. I will be dead and things will be better.14

I hear knocks on the door. The knocks are turning into pounding. My heart freezes in my throat and gets stuck there just like when moom died.15

"You better open this door or I'm telling Meredith." Andrew my foster brother is saying. I don't want my foster mother there even more then I don't want Andrew there. 16

I open the door with my bloody arm behind my back. Andrew sees the river of blood dripping onto the floor though.17

"What the...." he is in shock.18

"I'm getting Meredith," he tells me.19

I shake my head hard and beg him not to.20

"You're going to kill yourself, just like your mom did."21

The knife drops out of my gouged arm and clatters to the floor louder then I want. Andrew stares at it but doesn't pick it up or speak.22

"She didn't... you don't know... I was there... it was an accident.."23

I can't speak anymore becuase suddenly more memories then I ever had of the week before she died come flooding through my hair.24

"What are you doing mommmy?" I had asked seeing her on the roof.25

"I'm communning with god. I have to go soon sweetheart. I have to go. You need to be strong for me. Be strong for mommy. I have to go."26

With a sickening feeling I continue to remember the way my mom looked up on the roof. She had told me to go downstairs because it wasn't safe. I rememeber now. The last thing I saw before I ran down to try and catch her. She jumped off the roof. She didn't fall, she didn't fly. She jumped.27

My mom had committed suicide just like the social workers said she had. My memories were flooding back faster now. I remembered the paramedics mentioning suicide attempt as they rushed my broken up mom into the ambulance. I remember the long days at the hospital with the social workers, the multiple surgeries. In those days they told me it was an accident and that's what I had always believed. Until tonight. Until now. Until the night where my nightmare was absent but real life was worst.28

I stared down at my wrist gushing blood. I was starting to feel faint. If I died the superwoman part of my mom would be forgotten, all that would be left were everyone elses' memories of an unstable suicidal woman.29

I reached for a towel covered my wrist and applied pressure. 30

"Call 911 and then get Meredith." I instructed Andrew as the blood continued to gush. I was determined to keep the memory of my mother alive. No matter what it took. I would be the real super hero the one mom couldn't be strong enough to be.